History Recap / OddSquadS3E7OddSquadInTheShadows

* DistaffCounterpart: Symmetrical Alice is one to Symmetric Al in all but weaponry and attack methods -- while he uses a cube to remove halves of things, she uses vacuum hoses to suck up and destroy symmetrical things in their entirety.

* BrickJoke: Orla has a rather [[IncrediblyLamePun odd]] fascination with scorpions -- she attempts to release them when determining who the leader is, and later does it again after presumably figuring out the pattern of the villain.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Parodied. Odin challenges Omar for the rank of Shadow King, but the two boys don't get into a physically violent fight -- instead, in true show fashion, they battle by seeing who can make the best shadow puppets, using large flashlights as "weapons". The two even fight using shadow puppet warriors at one point.

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: Mr. Sides delivers this in the form of an {{Aesop}} to the Main 4 at the end of the episode regarding leadership and uses BusmansVocabulary while doing so.
--> '''Mr. Sides:''' If you ask me, a good team is like a plate of sides. There's no main dish and everyone's equal. Sure, some moments may call for guacamole. ''[Opal mouths "Guacamole?" in confusion]'' Others may call for brown rice or pepper-and-rosemary home fries. ''[Orla and Omar exchange looks]'' Or rare occasions will call for [[PunctuatedForEmphasis tangy mustard coleslaw.]]
--> '''Oswald:''' ''[leaning close to Opal]'' Am ''I'' the tangy coleslaw? ''[Opal shrugs]''
--> '''Mr. Sides:''' But all 4 sides together, on one plate, that's you guys! ''[jumps up into the air]'' Yeah!
--> '''Main 4:''' ''[shrug and jump up into the air]'' Yeah!!

* OdangoHair: Symmetric Alice wears her hair in two buns on the sides of her head.

* ChewingTheScenery: The scene of the agents in the shadow League presenting things to Omar is as hammy as the episode can get. Jayce Alexander wastes absolutely no time in being a LargeHam while playing the Shadow King.

* ThrowingDownTheGauntlet: Odin challenges Omar to a shadow duel by trash-talking the Mobile Unit agent. Considering that

* SurpassedTheTeacher: Omar says this of Odin when he tells off Symmetric Alice with his knowledge about shadows..

* RousingSpeech: Mr. Sides delivers this in the form of an {{Aesop}} to the Main 4 at the end of the episode regarding leadership and uses BusmansVocabulary while doing so.
--> '''Mr. Sides:''' If you ask me, a good team is like a plate of sides. There's no main dish and everyone's equal. Sure, some moments may call for guacamole. ''[Opal mouths "Guacamole?" in confusion]'' Others may call for brown rice or pepper-and-rosemary home fries. ''[Orla and Omar exchange looks]'' Or rare occasions will call for [[PunctuatedForEmphasis tangy mustard coleslaw.]]
--> '''Oswald:''' ''[leaning close to Opal]'' Am ''I'' the tangy coleslaw? ''[Opal shrugs]''
--> '''Mr. Sides:''' But all 4 sides together, on one plate, that's you guys! ''[jumps up into the air]'' Yeah!
--> '''Main 4:''' ''[shrug and jump up into the air]'' Yeah!!
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Instead of banding together to fight against Symmetric Alice, the agents of Pinehurst, barring North Caroline Ms. O, ''run away screaming.'' Bear in mind that Alice is ''severely'' outnumbered by the amount of agents at the tournament, who, if they were brave enough, could take her down with no problem, and a majority of the agents likely don't have symmetrical names.

** Omar is of the Mastermind type. He is very knowledgeable about shadows, moreso than the other members of the Shadow League, and uses his knowledge to his advantage while he is leader.
** Odin, who is all but stated to have been the leader of the Shadow League before Omar joined, is of the Charismatic type. While treating shadows as SeriousBusiness and having a specific goal for his League, he has very little knowledge on how to make shadows. He also isn't afraid to stand up to those whom he views as a threat, and does most of the talking for the group.

* FelonyMisdemeanor: Orla realizes that she was wrong in the pattern the villain is following being a color pattern, and as a result, she steps down from the role as leader, allowing Opal or Oswald to take the folder. Oswald ends up taking it for himself, becoming the new leader of the trio.

* AnimeHair: Red Fred has a wild-looking hairdo that wouldn't be too out of place in an anime.

* DistaffCounterpart: Symmetrical Alice is one to Symmetric Al in all but weaponry and attack methods -- while he uses a cube to remove halves of things, she uses vacuum hoses to suck up symmetrical things in their entirety.

* ShoutOut: Omar being appointed king of a secret league sounds similar to the events of the ''WesternAnimation/Arthur'' special ''DW's Beastly Birthday.''

* SeriesContinuityError: Previous episodes have established that Opal is [[TheLeader the de facto leader]] of OSMU through numerous implications. This episode has all of the Main 4 vying for a leadership role (something that is very out-of-character for them), and officially makes any talk of leadership concerning the Mobile Unit canon. While Mr. Sides does tell them that they're all equal to each other at the end of the episode, and that there is no canonically determined leader (something they're content with), future episodes would continue to have Opal serve in such a role within the group, with the rest of the agents taking backseat.

* KitschyThemedRestaurant: Mr. Sides' restaurant only serves appetizers and not main dishes. It's a bit of a cross between your average sit-down restaurant and a fast-food place similar to those like McDonald's and Wendy's, but doesn't get much business.

** Opal, Orla and Oswald run into the same problem that Olympia and Otis had in [[Recap/OddSquadS2E4TheOTeamShowMeTheMoney "The O-Team"]], as well as them and the rest of Precinct 13579's agents in [[Recap/OddSquadS2E30TheDepositSlipUpVillainsAlwaysWin "The Deposit Slip-Up"]]: not realizing that there is a horizontal line of symmetry in addition to a vertical line.

* AllThereInTheScript: The other three agents of the Shadow League aren't given names, but are listed in the credits as "Oskie", "Odiana" and "Odette". While "Oskie" is the name of the other male agent in the League, none of the girls are named. However, one look at the actors who play them and viewers can tell who is who -- Odiana, played by Laaibah Alvi, has the PrimAndProperBun and is tall, while Odette, played by Selina Frias, is the shorter girl.

* AllThereInTheScript: The other three agents of the Shadow League aren't given names, but are listed in the credits as "Oskie", "Odiana" and "Odette". While "Oskie" is the name of the other male agent in the League, it's unclear which girl is "Odiana" and which is "Odette".

[[caption-width-right:350:AChildShallLeadThem, the Shadow Organization! Now all hail TheGoodKing Omar!]]

* AllThereInTheScript: The other three agents of the shadow organization aren't given names, but are listed in the credits as "Oskie", "Odiana" and "Odette". While "Oskie" is the name of the other male agent in the organization, it's unclear which girl is "Odiana" and which is "Odette".

* Opal later does one when Orla wants to release "celebration scorpions" for figuring out the villain's pattern.

* ChewingTheScenery: The scene of the agents in the shadow organization presenting things to Omar is as hammy as the episode can get. Jayce Alexander wastes absolutely no time in being a LargeHam while playing the appointed king.

* EvilRedhead: Crimson Carl, natch.

* FinishingEachOthersSentences: The Main 4 all do this when North Carolina Ms. O asks who's in charge of OSMU.

* GenderEqualEnsemble: The shadow organization is made up of two males (Odin and Oskie) and two females (Odiana and Odette). It becomes imbalanced when Omar joins with them.

* ImpossibleShadowPuppets: Omar, as well as the agents of the shadow organization later on, make shadows that are quite clearly animated in CGI (given that this is primarily a live-action show), and delve into [[invoked]] SpecialEffectFailure at some points.

* KitschyThemedRestaurant: Mr. Sides' restaurant only serves appetizers and not main dishes. It's a bit of a cross between your average sit-down restaurant and a fast-food place similar to those like McDonald's and Wendy's.
* TheLeader: This episode performs a {{Deconstruction}} of the trope, to a certain extent. The main conflict of the episode revolves around who is the leader of the Mobile Unit, with all 4 claiming that they're the leader. However, while Opal, Orla and Oswald each pass along the leader rank to each other (Orla passing it along to Oswald, and him passing it to Opal), Omar becomes the leader of a shadow organization after separating from the group and gets into a leadership tussle with another agent of the shadow organization, Odin, who battles him for the position of leader (and it's implied that he was the leader of the organization before Omar came along). By the end of the episode, Mr. Sides, a local restaurant owner, tells the group that everyone is equal and that there is no defined "leader", which they take to heart, but later episodes show that Opal, the de facto leader of the group, remains as such. The episode also deconstructs how each agent handles being a leader and being in such a role:

** Opal is of the Charismatic type, with some overlap with Headstrong and Mastermind. Being the de facto leader of OSMU, her GoGetterGirl personality keeps the trio going and allows them to take a better course of action in finding the villain.
** Omar is of the Mastermind type. He is very knowledgeable about shadows, moreso than the other members of the Shadow Organization, and uses his knowledge to his advantage while he is leader.

* NeverTrustATitle: Since the BigBad of the season is named The Shadow, one would think that this episode would mark her official debut after [[Recap/OddSquadS3E2OddBeginningsPartTwo "Odd Beginnings: Part 2"]]. Instead, the "shadows" portion of the episode revolves around Omar and him forming a bond with the Shadow Organization to make shadows for the mini-golf tournament, and the rest of the episode revolves around the tournament itself. The Shadow doesn't appear until "Slow Your Roll", 3 episodes later.

* TheOrder: The Shadow Organization is a small group of Odd Squad agents that have been meeting every week for 2 months to make a shadow, but haven't made one yet. Their overall goal is to perform a shadow puppet show at the mini-golf tournament, but don't quite know how shadows are made. When Omar stumbles across them and impresses them with his extensive knowledge of shadows, they name him their leader, which doesn't please Odin, a member of the organization who is implied to have been the leader before Omar came along. He challenges the Mobile Unit agent to a shadow duel in order to seize power, but ends up losing and bands with him to partake in the shadow puppet show and stop Symmetric Alice from destroying the mini-golf tournament.

** Omar, with his [[TheDitz ditzy]] ways, also wouldn't be a good fit for a leadership position, something that is reflected when Odin, who is implied to have led the shadow organization before him, decides to fight him for leadership after doubting his knowledge on shadows.

* SeriousBusiness: The shadow organization seems to take shadows and shadow puppets ''very'' seriously, to such extent that it's worth having a ''battle for leadership'' over.
* ShoutOut: Omar being appointed king of a secret organization sounds similar to the events of the ''WesternAnimation/Arthur'' special ''DW's Beastly Birthday.''

* WorldTour: This episode has the group visiting Pinehurst, North Carolina, with the Big O on vacation in the Great Plains of Odd.
* YeahShot: The episode ends on one of these.

* AllThereInTheScript: The other three agents of the shadow organization aren't given names, but are listed in the credits as "Oskie", "Odiana" and "Odette". While "Oskie" is the name of the other male agent in the organization, it's unclear which female is "Odiana" and which is "Odette".